Giving Thanks On Thanksgiving is an American tradition. Giving thanks is an important lesson for children to learn any time of year. At Thanksgiving it’s especially important. There are many ways to approach this lesson. First and foremost is modeling thankfulness for children and to use please and thank you throughout your interactions with them and others. Leading by example will take you far in this regard. Your children will begin to use these polite words when you show them that it’s expected.

Giving Thanks On Thanksgiving For Healthy Foods

Giving thanks on Thanksgiving with a horn of plenty. This cornucopia is something is fun to fill with pictures of healthy foods cut from old magazines. Older kids can cut out the foods they like. Look for the cornucopia pattern for Free on Printables!

We made a chart to differentiate healthy from junk food.

Healthy foods in the cornucopia.

Giving Thanks On Thanksgiving For Family

We have the parents send in family photos which we scrapbook onto an individual house patterens, one for each child. We hang the houses on a large bulletin board through December. Then we bind them into a book which becomes so popular the kids argue over who gets a turn with the family book! I can’t show you the book here because I won’t put the children’s pictures online.

Three year olds told their their teacher about the people in their family. The teacher drew these pictures based on what the children told her about their families.

Each child chose paint to match their skin color, and made a handprint. Next teachers added facial features to each finger. Flesh tones of all shades can be achieved by starting with brown and adding white to lighten it until you have the desired tone. The song Where Is Thumbkin is perfect for this activity.

Our question of the day will be about our families. Do you have a brother? The names should rise from the bottom row so the children can clearly see which column has more.

Art

Preschoolers of all ages have a great time with the Down On The Farm Theme. Sorting animals by type, cooking, fun songs and videos are just a few of the activities for this week long theme. There might be enough material for two weeks.

Next try Sleeping Cows. Can’t find a video so imagine… your children lie down and pretend to be sleeping while you sing 🎶 ” See The sleeping cows till it’s nearly noon come let us wake them with a merry tune.” 🎶 As the children wake up they make the cow sound. Play as long as you like just adding different animals. “See the sleeping pigs, kitties, penguins… whatever you want. 😉

Hay Stacks

While we’re making these we’re looking at this video of an old classic nursery rhyme Little Boy Blue

Each child gets a 6×6 piece of wax paper and a wooden craft stick. First melt butterscotch chips. Then pour in the chow mein noodles. Mix until the noodles are coated. Scoop into plastic soufflé cups. Allow to cool just a moment. Kids “mix” with the craft stick and turn the hay stacks out onto their wax paper. Enjoy!

No product endorsements here. Store brands work fine!

Melt your Butterscotch chips in the microwave or on the stove. Pour on your noodles stir and cool for just a few minutes.

Hey! Hay bails can be delivered by local nurseries. When it starts to go to sprout or get moldy you can spread it over your garden or playground.

The kids find many uses for the hay.

Animals Down On The Farm

Milking Cows

We collected all the cows around our school to put in the milking bin. I filled a rubber glove with warm water and a few drops of white paint. I tied the top closed and poked a pin hole or two in a few of the fingers. The kids squeeze the glove to get the milk flowing.

What Grows Down On The Farm

Shucking the corn is fun and great for fine motor. This is cow corn.

The kids can glue the corn kernels onto a corn cob cut out or have them glue bits of torn tissue paper on instead. I’ve also seen this with hand prints cut out for the green husk.

Veggies growing in the soil in the sensory table. Kids can “harvest” the veggies and put them in the basket.

Play dough with Mr. Potato Head pieces. This would be cool on a day when you do potato printing, and/or potato planting

These are cute but the paint pealed of after it was dry. Needs some work – fail!

Be a tree rubber and a tree hugger! Getting a bark rubbing is a great way to introduce texture words to young children. It’s also a great time to start talking about concervation.

Tractor Pull

These are fun activities to do with your toy tractors. First, tape a large piece of butcher paper onto a table. Next poor some brown or black paint in a tray. Have the kids dip the wheels in and drive around the table. What fun making tracks is! The second pic has brown paint mixed with equal parts shaving cream and glue. Driving tractors in the mud is so fun!

Some of these last minute preschool Halloween ideas just came to me today! Talk about last minute…tomorrow is Halloween!

Sorting By Two Attributes

Spider webs in shoe boxes. The pic doesn’t show it very well but there are cards in front of each box with spider/fly on one side and orange/black on the other side. The flies are just a printed pic of a realistic fly laminated and cut out. They are stuck onto the ribbon web with scotch tape. Kiddos grab a spider or fly and sort.

Science

Stirring our brew. Black paydough. See recipe below.

Art

Marble painting spider webs and handprint spiders! I cut out “web shapes” the children marble painted with white paint. Later we painted handprint spiders. This is achieved by turning the paper after the first handprint is done. Then overlapping the palms so the fingers stick out on both sides. Let it dry and cut them out

Dramatic Play

Masking tape web on a window and table. On the window (actually our door to the playground) I used masking tape first and then added double sided tape to some of the web to make it sticky like real web.

Collaborations

This is no Itsy Bitsy Spider. He measures about 3 feet across! We sing Itsy Bitsy Spider then we sing “Biggy Wiggy Spider” with the same tune and same lyrics but deep BIG voices!

Our Jack-O-Lantern is also very big although there’s no reference point in the pic. Both of this and the spider were collaborative works.

Sensory Tables

These sensory tables are great fun.

Math

Matching Dollar Tree character erasers.

Counting Dollar Tree spiders putting them in Dollar Tree pumpkins.

Science

Skwishy, gooey, yucky. Wet angel hair pasta, wet pumpkin seeds and guts, grape jelly, wet eggs (small). All set inside bowls and covered tightly with grocery bags. Cut an X in the top of the bag to create an opening just big enough for tiny 3 or 4 year old hands. Let the “fun” begin!

Art

Stickers on haunted house pattern. Find the pattern for Free at Printables!

Painted pumpkins.

DAP Jack-O-Lanterns. Children cut out their own pumpkin shape, then they were offered different shapes to glue on.

Displays

Cookie Cutter Prints

Coockie cutter printing is easy enough for toddlers to accomplish and the results are satisfying. It’s process art with a nice product.

Negative Space

This technique is called negative space art. Also proccess art with a nice product. Children place leaves where they want on the paper, choose paint colors and finger paint, sponge paint, dabber paint, or just ain’t with a brush all around the leaves. Before the paint is dry lift off the leaves to see what is revealed.

Handprint Trees

More proccess art with this hand print finger print art. These trees are so nice when done each season and you’ll have a series of four in the spring! Simply paint the arm and hand brown, and print . The only advice I can offer is to place the arm and hand print lower on the paper. This will give the tree top more fullness.

Sensory Table

This is the easy part. Teachers just kind of dump stuff in and let the kids have at it! Silk leaves and gourds here.

Teacher Made Game

The best part of this game is the kids get to collect the chestnuts just like little squirrels! Teachers just cut a long strip maybe 20 inches long by 6 or 8 inches wide. Draw little brown circles one for each #. Laminate and it’s ready to play!